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ANS Student Conference 2025
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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Takashi Hosoma, Masanori Aritomi, Tsunemichi Kawa
Nuclear Technology | Volume 129 | Number 2 | February 2000 | Pages 218-235
Technical Paper | Reprocessing | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3058
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Excess pressure caused by the bubble and the pressure shift resulting from the air column in a dip-tube pressure measurement are the error sources to be considered for highly accurate density, level, and volume determination of plutonium nitrate solution in a tank. A new approach to estimate the maximum, the minimum, and the average of oscillating excess pressure as a function of tube diameter d, solution density , and surface tension without including height, curvature, and amplitude of the bubble is proposed. This approach can be applied without reducing the rate of downward airflow that is necessary to prevent contamination. When the estimates were compared with the experimental results in a water-ethanol system within the range 3.6 × 10-6 /(g) 7.4 × 10-6 (m2) and 1.8 d(g/)1/2 9.6, the mean of the difference was <2 Pa. The estimate for the maximum excess pressure was also compared with the conventional formula, and the difference was <1 Pa. We also proposed an equation to estimate the surface tension of the plutonium nitrate solution. For the pressure shift, a new formula assuming that the air density varies exponentially in the tube is proposed. The measured differential pressure is proportional to the hydrostatic pressure, and the coefficient is nearly independent of the liquid level. These correction factors of excess pressure and pressure shift can practically be given as constants.